


Healing

by Living_Underground



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, I don't know season 8 well enough to know where exactly, Some time season 8, a fight, about their unborn child, and the time Mulder missed, but it's kind of angsty, but post Three Words, definitely post Three Words, it is what it is, kind of, oh well, this was supposed to be fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24062440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Living_Underground/pseuds/Living_Underground
Summary: Scully needs to pee. Mulder is being dumb. Arguments and poor communication skills ensue.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	Healing

**Author's Note:**

> I, uh, yeah... I wrote this whilst I was in an online tutorial that I had not done the work for whilst watching Chicago in the background. Which is why it is so terrible. I can barely focus on one thing, let alone three. 
> 
> I truly did want this to be fluffy though, a fluffy little vignette of them sat having a cute little convo on Scully's couch. 
> 
> I took out a lot of the angst because it was just...too much. Like, too much too much.

She eased down on the sofa next to him, hands braced to help her. She was getting big. Had been big since he’d…returned. Was _returned_ the right way to put it? Arisen, maybe? No, too religious. Best stick with returned. It was…not what he was expecting when he woke up in the land of the living – though, to be fair, waking up in the land of the living at all was a bit more than he was expecting.

She let out a pained breath, her face crumpling into a grimace as she adjusted her body to find a comfortable position. A _more_ comfortable position, anyway. He didn’t think anything could be _actually_ comfortable for her at the moment. ‘You good?’

‘I need to pee.’

‘Oh. Uh, but you just sat down…’

She shifted again and glared at him. ‘You’re real observant, you know that? You ever tried getting a job at the FBI? I hear they’re looking for people who can state the bloody obvious.’

‘Yeah, I tried working for them once. It got me killed,’ he deadpanned before softening. ‘I didn’t mean it to sound…so dumb.’

‘Nobody ever _means_ to sound dumb, Mulder. That’s the problem.’

‘Well, maybe I’ll just keep quiet in the future, not show concern, how about that?’

‘Don’t be an asshole, Mulder.’

‘Me? _Me_ being an asshole?’ He nodded, bottom lip pouting. ‘Right, okay.’

‘I’m too tired for this. I just meant that apologising for being dumb is pointless, okay? That’s all I meant by it,’ she sighed and groaned, ‘I didn’t need to pee when I was standing up, and then I sat down and the baby shifted and now I need to pee because _your_ child is elbowing my bladder.’

‘Why’s it only ever my child when you need to pee?’ He asked as he stood, holding a hand out to help her up. She heaved herself to standing with his help, wincing at the pull in her back.

‘It was your child when I had chronic morning sickness, too, if that helps,’ that one cut deep, and she knew it, regretting the comment even as it was slipping out. ‘Sorry, that was…’

‘Scully-‘

‘Mulder, I didn’t…’ she grit her teeth together, looking up to the ceiling to try, _just try,_ and stop the tears that she really didn’t want from welling in her eyes at his downcast face. ‘I was just kidding. I didn’t mean it like that,’ tonight was not going well, and they were _just_ starting to get used to one another again, or so she had thought. Maybe it would take more than a baby to fix them, she thought snidely. ‘I just…I don’t blame you,’ though she wasn’t sure what it was she wasn’t blaming him for; not being there or the baby.

He was shuffling from foot to foot, studying the nails he had bitten to the quick – Scully had tried to remember if that was something he used to do, bite his nails, but she drew a blank. It wasn’t a habit she remembered. She’d have to get him a bag of sunflower seeds next time she went shopping, see if they helped.

‘I wish I’d been there. I could have…I could have rubbed your back, or…something,’ he finished lamely, shrugging and fidgeting some more.

‘You can still, you know, rub my back…if you want…you know, without the vomit,’ romantic, Dana. Real romantic. Don Quixote will be banging down your door looking for tips. ‘Or, uh, you could help me to the bathroom?’ _Or you could help me to the bathroom?_ _Really?_ She cringed. She was still the dork she was twenty years ago, only now her dorkiness actually had real consequences, like whether her kid would have a father. Maybe she should ask him about that at some point, check they were on the same page.

‘Yeah. Yeah, I can do that,’ oh, okay then. Maybe the dorkiness was working. Or maybe he was just helping her get to the bathroom. Either way, his arm had found its way to her back and his other hand was holding hers and he smelt of Mulder and of home and he was so, so warm and she just wanted to lean into him and curl up and forget the last six months.

But she couldn’t. And neither could he. And they still had so much healing to do before they brought this child into the world, together or apart.

And neither of them had ever been particularly good at healing.

**Author's Note:**

> Dana Scully is a little weirdo dork. And terrible at communication. In this essay, I will...


End file.
